Usually, if the Rockies went 4-5 on a road trip, it wouldn’t be so bad.
After all, the Rockies have an all-time franchise winning percentage of .389 on the road (957-1501) and 4-5 equates to .444. If the Rockies did that consistently, they would be a much-improved squad.
But after blowing leads late in every game against the A’s and only battling back to win one, this 4-5 should have been 6-3. Being swept by the Giants and losing a series in Oakland is making the good times of the seven-game winning streak that preceded quickly fade away.
Add the context of recording the worst season in franchise history last season and it starts getting pretty bleak. However, Rockies fans knew this season was going to be rough. The team’s best pitcher, Germán Márquez, is still out, and the roster didn’t change significantly over the offseason. In February, I wrote an expectations guide for the season to try to help Rockies fans, myself included, maintain our well-being despite the losing that was to come.
It feels pretty bad right now, but consider the Oakland A’s fan. After seeing the empty seats in the Oakland Coliseum in the Rockies last ever trip to Oakland, it’s devastating to witness the death spiral of Oakland baseball.
Insulted by an owner who doesn’t even pretend to try, as evidenced by Oakland’s No. 30 2024 payroll of $64.4 million (which is less than the $68 million per season Shohei Ohtani is deferring to collect each year from 2034-2043), the three games saw attendance of 4,005, 3,617 and 6,886 for a total of 14,508. (For comparison, the lowest attendance the Rockies have had for a game this season was 18,311 on a Wednesday afternoon on April 10 against the Diamondbacks.)
Any fans of the game, or anyone capable of even a small amount of empathy, can feel it. My heart goes out to A’s fans who are being robbed of their team.
Don’t Show Me the Money
Since the A’s moved from Kansas City to Oakland in 1968, the fanbase has been treated to four World Series championships, six American League pennants, 17 AL West titles and four Wild Card berths.
They have had the pleasure of having Hall of Famers like Ricky Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers wear the green and gold. The Bash Brothers of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire called Oakland home and the franchise gave birth to Billy Bean’s Moneyball, ushering in baseball’s analytic age.
Despite being a historic franchise and one that excels at winning, especially compared to the Rockies, they have a profit-driven owner who also frequently sabotages his own ability to make money by ill-conceived decisions. This list includes refusing to remove the tarp covering the top tiers of the stadium even when the rest of the stadium sold out in playoff runs and a failed scheme for a new stadium at Howard Terminal in Oakland.
While the Coliseum deal is complicated and Fisher isn’t the only one to blame, he also bought half of the stadium for $85 million in 2019 and is paying $1.25 million to lease this season, the last in the contract. Destruction and relocation seemed like a better plan, so Fisher is letting the stadium and team waste away so he can rip away the organization from the fans who love it to put it on the Las Vegas Strip to cash in on a Sin City payday. Yes, this means moving a team in the 10th biggest media market to the 40th, but apparently having the highest ratio of premium seats in MLB will fix that.
After the state of Nevada approved $380 million in taxpayer funds for a Las Vegas A’s stadium, the Nevada State Education Association sued and continues to fight for Schools Over Stadiums in a battle that makes the Vegas stadium anything but a done deal. Fisher seems to be permanently orchestrating deals that betray fans in Oakland and create loathing in Las Vegas.
Of Lobsters and A’s Fans
Like David Foster Wallace’s lobster is to the Maine Lobster Festival, so is the A’s fan to John Fisher. As Wallace eloquently described in his famous 2004 essay, lobster connoisseurs ignore facts and twist their minds to believe the lobsters feel no pain when they sit and wait to be boiled alive. Fisher, who inherited his family’s Gap fortune and now boasts a net worth of $3 billion, used to be a partial owner of the San Francisco Giants before switching allegiances to buy the A’s in 2005. He then took complete control of the organization in 2016. All the while, Fisher’s been setting traps, slowly boiling the water and making everyone wait for years as he bumbles his way out of town.
In 2023, Fisher told fans that his unwillingness to field a competitive team spend had been “a lot worse for me than it’s been for you,” as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The fans see it a little differently. In an article in The Athletic, A’s diehard fan Bryan Johansen, who with others leads protests and nicknamed the Oakland Coliseum “The Last Dive Bar,” says it best:
“It’s like a death in the family, and your own family member murdered the person,” Johansen said. “It’s horrible. There’s no words to describe it. There’s teams that have relocated before and it hurts and it’s painful. … But this is the most long, drawn out relocation process in probably the history of sports. And the ugliest, too.”
Some Mile High Perspective
Sure, Dick Monfort is a bad owner in a lot of ways. He won’t allow new ideas or new faces in the front office, he can’t use the word rebuild, he signs off on ludicrous contracts other front offices roll their eyes at, he can’t part with players even when trading them would better the team and he can’t take criticism. But no one can say he doesn’t love the Rockies. He sees players as family members and has the 16th-highest payroll in MLB this season at $144.5 million. He spends money, even if it’s not wisely.
He also keeps Coors Field in pristine condition. The LoDo treasure will celebrate its 30th birthday next year, relegating it as the third oldest stadium in the National League. Coors Field is often referred to as the best bar in LoDo, which is pretty different than the sewage and rodent problems at The Last Dive Bar.
This is not to vindicate Monfort or excuse his performance as an owner. He’s still out of his league and shoulders the blame for the Rockies current winning percentage of .327 (16-33). Monfort even has some things in common with Fisher. He joined other MLB owners in a unanimous vote approving the A’s move to Vegas, making him complicit in Fisher’s malicious deeds. After all, this is the same Fisher is the guy who tried not to pay Oakland’s minor leaguers when COVID knocked out the 2020 season until he was shamed into it and reportedly has missed rent payments at the Coliseum. Does any of that sound like the 2020 Department of Analytics and Laundry to anybody else?
Baseball fans deserve better than the likes of John Fisher and Dick Monfort using their fortunes to LARP as baseball owners. Even though the Rockies have dropped to 16-33 and are currently the second-worst team in MLB after losing a series 2-1 to the A’s, who are 21-31 and not even the worst team in their division, their fans don’t have it as bad as Oakland does. Even though the Rockies have an owner who is actually trying to win performing worse than an owner who is actively trying not to win, at least Rockies fans aren’t experiencing the metaphorical slow-boil death of baseball in the East Bay.
Keep that in mind as the Rockies begin a grueling nine-game stretch today against three first-place teams: the Phillies, the Guardians and the Dodgers. It’s going to be rough. But it could be worse.
★ ★ ★
Cal Quantrill’s Mindset is Exactly What the Colorado Rockies Need | Just Baseball
Patrick Lyons dives into the stats and behind-the-scenes thoughts of Cal Quantrill and how he’s been the best starter for the Rockies so far this season.
Colorado Rockies Manager Reflects on the Oakland Coliseum, A’s Fans | Inside the A’s
In a fitting tribute during the Rockies final trip to the Oakland Coliseum, Bud Black shares his thoughts on the stadium as a fan, player and manager.
★ ★ ★
On the Farm
Triple-A: Salt Lake Bees 9, Albuquerque Isotopes 8
As go Colorado’s ninth-inning meltdowns, apparently so goes the Isotopes. Following the pattern of losing games late after leading, the Isoptopes lost in the ninth when the Bees drew three walks before Elliot Soto hit a walk-off triple. The game was tied at 6-all going into the ninth when Coco Montes drew a two-out walk and Michael Toglia and Aaron Schunk hit back-to-back doubles to take an 8-6 lead that didn’t hold. Trevor Boone went 2-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored while Sean Bouchard went 2-for-5 with a triple and a run scored.
Double-A: Hartford Yard Goats 10, Portland Sea Dogs 1
Ryan Ritter drove in three runs on three hits and scored two more, Yanquiel Fernandez went 3-for-5 with three RBI and a run scored and Nic Kent also posted a three-hit night, while also scoring a run and posting one RBI, in the Yard Goats big victory on Thursday. Mason Albright picked up his second win of the season after only giving up one run on three hits with four strikeouts and three walks in seven innings. Brendan Hardy posted three strikeouts for a perfect eighth and Bryce McGowan gave up one hit and struck out one in a scoreless ninth.
High-A: Spokane Indians 9, Eugene Emeralds 3
Bryant Bentancourt hit a three-run homer in the ninth to cap off a four-RBI, two-hit night and Jesus Bugarin added three hits and scored two runs in Spokane’s win on Thursday night. Sean Sullivan improved to 2-1 after pitching 6 2⁄3 solid innings when he struck out eight and gave up five hits and three runs (zero earned). Juan Guerrero and Robby Martin Jr. each chipped in two hits and scored two runs apiece for the Indians.
Low-A: Fresno Grizzlies 3, Visalia Rawhide 2
Aidan Longwell hit a walk-off RBI single to score Caleb Hobson as Fresno claimed a victory after almost blowing the game in the top of the ninth. With a 2-0 lead entering the final frame, the Grizzlies gave up two singles and a walk, and threw in a throwing error, that allowed Visalia to tie up the game. In the bottom of the frame, Ben McCabe was hit by a pitch and Hobson replaced him as a pinch runner. Hobson advanced two second on a wild pitch and Luis Mendez walked to put runners at first and second. Glenallen Hill Jr. then hit a sacrifice bunt to move Hobson and Mendez to second and third before Longwell ended the game with an infield single. Austin Emener threw seven scoreless innings, only allowing three hits and one walk with eight strikeouts in a solid start for Fresno.
★ ★ ★
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